Long Navy Poems

The Amistad Mutiny

Slavery, a dirty word no matter how it’s pronounced:
Abducted and herded to the slave fortress of Lomboko1 for trade.
To be tossed in chains below deck on the Portuguese ship Tecora,2
Sailing the Atlantic Middle...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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It's peaceful here in my backyard.
The crows sound happy
with warm October sunlight.

I just read about a deadly gathering in Las Vegas.
Absence of sun-drenched peace.
Inconvenient this time of lost loss.
Death is always inconvenient,
even when invited.

A veteran,
about...

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Every year In Robin Hood Country Nottingham
There in October, they hold. What is known, as the Goose Fair. It's huge. and goes back centuries, straining the Middle Ages, perhaps even longer.
My pals and I back...

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I remember feeling so empty the abuse had escalated after four hurricanes witnessing a murder horrific traumatic brain injury I was now uprooted leaving my beautiful home in Fort Myers Florida at the behest of...

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The Alaskan Oil Pipeline

Nineteen sixty-eight confirmed the year
Of discovery by ‘Humble Oil’
To North America’s largest oil field,
On the North Slope of the Brooks Range;
A west to east Northern Alaskan mountain chain.
An area forty miles wide...

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ON MY MOTHER’S PASSING

i wanted to keep my mother physically with me
but it would be like trying to hold the sun
like in life she still shines brighter than any star
is as gentle as the finest...

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U can 2 was on the license plate of my 
store manager brown Benz where a dead man 
was found in the trunk Alston Isadore defense store 
manager at Fort Sheridan Army base Ronald Reagan...

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A Most Courageous American President for the Ages

I thought it would be most appropriate for me to take a moment to
share some of my reflections on the life and distinguished public
service of the late 41st...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s TIME SIGHT UNSEEN, Part One by T. Wignesan

"Instead of an item in a school of rhetoric, the poem could have variety of articulations, continuity and discontinuity, sentence and parataxis, and an...

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"The Precipice"



In the Autumn 
she wore a wedding veil
A cold winter would lift it
Kiss her lips passionately to 
speak words of 
LOVE
on a 
late roll call

“Well, that’s insanity for you” 
some snakes would hiss
others rapture-faced
on...

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Continued from FREEZER MICE

The cat had travelled straight from hell, a hell beyond the stars
The cat that theories claim once levied genocide on Mars
She now seeks vengeance on descendants of the primal shrew
Whoever knew that...

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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s TIME SIGHT UNSEEN, Part Two by T. Wignesan

"Instead of an item in a school of rhetoric, the poem could have variety of articulations, continuity and discontinuity, sentence and parataxis, and an...

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We have come to you
Like the sun to the cloud does
Anything you can afford
Please,do,spare us.
We've been under this bridge
even the ants gossips us
Because we share the same meal.
We have come to you
President soldier,Pastor Navy
Money,nuts,fruit-
we'll appreciate!
We...

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Ours was daily mysterious,
sometimes near mystical, 
rapture;
a sensual yet platonic
dorm-mate love affair,
within the only male grad student corridor
at SFSU.

He was the presumably straight Vietnam veteran
southern white good ol' boy,
athletically studying Japanese,
with a gentle passion for...

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 Translation of Eric Mottram’s TIME SIGHT UNSEEN - Part Four by T. Wignesan


"Instead of an item in a school of rhetoric, the poem could have variety of articulations, continuity and discontinuity, sentence and parataxis,...

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How interesting. A contest about Afghanistan.
Afghanistan sits landlocked between Pakistan on the East
and Iran on the West with a population of 39 million. It's enemy          ...

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Trust, Trust, Trust
By Dr. Tina Medina
Whether it is Benghazi or Kansas City,
You will call and she won’t answer
The pattern and practice is established
You will call and she won’t answer
That is why I do not trust...

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On this morning after the dogs have been fed and run       around the yard barking at the crows and squirrels as they find the morning treats I have left...

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“Without you, now I see
How fragile the world can be
And I know you've gone away,
But in my heart you'll always stay”  –Katie Melua


There is a peculiar feeling I remember experiencing when the news came
...

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The Letter         

A young man strolled along the waterfront,
His mind and heart at ease.
Said an old man, sitting on an upturned punt,
Gazing out towards the sea. 

“Come...

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Tell her you saw me ...

Tell her I was out on the bluff at the Cape
during a gale, much too close to the rocks.
Tell her the surf was tormenting the ledges,
its roar far too loud...

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Just watching raindrops slapping leaves
is better than anything requiring electricity
including fame and posterity. Monday
morning I walk over to the art museum
stand before Homer. I'm imagining
life in ancient Greece, the land largely
deforested to build a navy,...

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